FACTS
As a Jubilee for the Native Peoples was not foreseen at a global level, on the occasion of the 2025 years of the Incarnation of the eternal Word of the Father, it was organized virtually by the Commission of Native Peoples of Celam, coordinated by Monsignor José Hiraís, bishop of Huejutla, Mexico, plus the Celam Advisory Team on Indian Theology, chaired by Cardinal Alvaro Ramazzini, of Huehuetenango, Guatemala, and the Latin American Ecumenical Articulation of Indigenous Pastoral (AELAPI), coordinated by Sister Josefa Ramírez, from Argentina. Some participated through Zoom and others through various networks.
Despite the propaganda we did, not many people connected, perhaps because they were not interested in the subject, or because of their multiple occupations.
Pope Leo XIV and the prefect of the Dicastery for Integral Human Development sent us a profound message.
There is a recurring attitude of contempt towards these people, as if they were ignorant, foolish, stubborn, half-pagan. They don’t know them! When I began to live with them, being a parish priest of an Otomi ethnic group, San Andrés Cuexcontitlán, I also despised them a little, not as people, but in their culture.
God granted me the grace to begin to value them, without ignoring their deficiencies like those of other cultures. They are another way, legitimate like the others, of being people, of living as a family and in a town, of being believers.
As bishop in Chiapas, I was able to live more with them and understand more about their dignity and their contribution to humanity. Since he was a parish priest with them, from 1966 to 1970, many already despised their own culture, due to all the marginalization they suffered. I wanted to learn their language, but the catechists opposed it, saying that they no longer wanted their children to speak it, so as not to expose themselves to as much contempt as they had suffered.
Many indigenous people do not want to appear as such, for the same reason: we have made them feel ashamed of their way of being and living. However, we continue to fight for their culture to be valued and not lost. Some among them are also committed to preserving it, since it can serve as a contribution to a dignified life for all.
LIGHTNING
I highlight some phrases from Pope Leo XIV, in his message for this occasion:
“The jubilee must be for us primarily a moment of living and personal encounter with the Lord Jesus, the ‘door’ of salvation, being an occasion for reconciliation, grateful memory and shared hope, more than a mere external celebration.
“In programming the jubilee moments, Pope Francis wanted to highlight the universality of the Church, which does not standardize, but rather welcomes, dialogues and is enriched by the diversity of peoples; it includes in a special way you, the Native Peoples, whose history, spirituality and hope constitute an irreplaceable voice within the ecclesial communion.
“We are a People of brothers, one in the One. It is from that Truth that we must reread our history and our reality, to face the future with the hope to which the Holy Year summons us, despite the work and tribulation.
Being Native Peoples, they are strengthened with the certainty that One is the origin and goal of the universe, the First in all; origin of all goodness, and therefore, first source of everything that is good, also in our towns.
“The long history of evangelization that our Native Peoples have known, as the bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean have taught so many times, is full of ‘lights and shadows’. There are no schisms between us.
“The Jubilee, a precious time for forgiveness, invites us to forgive our brothers from the heart, to reconcile with our own history and to thank God for his mercy towards us. In this way, recognizing both the lights and the wounds of our past, we understand that we can only be a People if we truly abandon ourselves to the power of God, to his action in us.
“He, who has inserted the ‘seeds of the Word’ into all cultures, makes them flourish in a new and surprising way, pruning them so that they bear more fruit. This is what my predecessor, Saint John Paul II, stated: ‘The force of the Gospel is transforming and regenerating everywhere. When it penetrates a culture, who can be surprised that not a few elements change in it? There would be no catechesis if it were the Gospel that would have to change in contact with cultures’ (CT, 53). Therefore, in dialogue and encounter, we learn from the different ways of seeing the world, we value what is unique and original to each culture, and together we discover the abundant life that Christ offers to all peoples.
“This new life is given to us precisely because we share the fragility of the human condition marked by original sin, and because we have been reached by the grace of Christ, who shed the last drop of his Blood for all, so that we would have ‘Life in abundance’, healing and redeeming all who open their hearts to the grace that was given to us.
“In the concert of nations, indigenous peoples must present with courage and freedom their own human, cultural and Christian wealth. The Church listens and is enriched by their unique voices.
“We also remember the call of the Gospel to avoid the temptation to put at the center what is not God—be it power, domination, technology or any created reality—so that our hearts always remain oriented to the one Lord, source of life and hope.
“Therefore, for those of us who, by the mercy of God, call ourselves and are Christians, all our historical, social, psychological or methodological discernment finds its ultimate meaning in the supreme mandate to make known Jesus Christ, who died for the forgiveness of our sins and rose again so that we may be saved in his Name, already from this earth, and then worship him with all our being in the glory of Heaven.
“I invite you to renew your commitment to the Lord’s command: ‘Go and make all people my disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to fulfill everything that I have commanded you. And I will always be with you until the end of the world’, spreading the joy that springs from having encountered your Divine Heart” (October 12, 2025).
ACTIONS
Let us no longer despise the brothers of the Native Peoples. Let us learn to value their culture, different from ours, because, in their experiences that are in accordance with the Gospel, God enriches society and the Church.
Bishop emeritus of San Cristóbal de las Casas
Related
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